P2 Card Failure / Anomoly with P2 Store & Powerbook

RandyRosenthal

RandyRosenthal

Active member
We just got back from an intense four day shoot in NY using two 8GB P2 cards, a P2 Store and a Firestore FS-100. Everything worked very well until yesterday afternoon when a P2 card seemed to fail. Here is what happened:

Two P2 cards were formatted in the P2 store and inserted into the HVX-200 for shooting (720 30N) Both cards were recognized by the HVX and the total recording time was displayed at 33min.

When the viewfinder indicator showed one P2 card full and 16 min remaining, we pulled the full P2 to dump to the P2 store. Recording continued on the 2nd card.

When we put the full P2 card into the P2 store and pressed Start, all of the green lights indicating percentage copied flashed continually. We waited about 15 minutes and hit cancel and tried again with the same result.

We the took the P2 card in question and inserted it into the camera and it did not show any recorded media.

The second card did have media.

WHAT HAPPENED??????

Some other notes:

These same P2 cards worked flawlessly until yesterday.

While most of the time data was transferred from the P2 Cardss to the P2 store, right before this failure we transferred the card contents from our Powerbook. The transfer went fine. However, the P2 cards took a long time to mount and during that wait, the computer was frozen.

The p2 cards were formatted in the p2 store prior to shooting.

The day before, the P2 store had previously displayed full capacity remaining even when 3/4 full of media.

Attached are jpgs of what is on the P2 card that failed.

Just now when I went to look at the P2 card in question, we got a kernal pasnoc when we unmounted the P2.

Jan , anybody... have you seen this before?

We still have the 2nd P2 with data that we are afraid of using either the P2 store or the Laptop.
 

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Have you tried to view the P2 card in question in the camera and then determine you can view the clips as well as potentially repair the clips. Just a random thought...

Ned Soltz
 
Thanks Ned.

When viewed in the camera, the card seems empty. The really ODD thing is that the shooter saw the remaining time decrease and the card fill up.

rr
 
Well, from you JPEGS, the card in question is indeed EMPTY! From the second JPEG, I'd need to know what is inside all those folders, period.
 
Hi Ben,

There is nothing in the floders. Yes, its empty. The BIG question is Why? Why did the camera "seem" to record to the cards, show it being full, and then this?

r
 
Sounds like it could be user error. Are you sure that the card you expected to be the recording destination is in fact the card that was being written to. It's not uncommon for people to think that just because they swapped out a card for dumping and brought in a clean one that they expected the camera to switch over when it's recording to the other card.
 
Like I said, we started the day with two freshly formatted P2 cards. The camera read 33 min remaining. As we shot the time decreased until one card displayed as full. We pulled that card and tried to dump to P2 store (just like we had done over & over for the last three days) This is when we noticed the failure. Meanwhile the remaining card continued to write and that footage stuck. NOTE: We have not inserted the remaining card into either the p2Store nor the laptop.

At this point. we'll dump the good P2 footage from the camera in case its the p2 store that has caused this problem.

Its possible thats its user error. We hope it is! Thats much better than the alternative. However its not as you suggest.
 
I hate to say it but it sounds as if the wrong card was pulled. When the card formatter works it makes that Contents folder structure.

My suggestion is to transfer the footage off of the P2 card, and the P2 Store should have 7 directories called No Name. Each of these should be a card and its folder inside. Do you show any more than just the one No Name?

Once you have figured out whether you have all of the footage off, you should see it you can nail it down to whether the P2 card, or the P2 Store is having the problem. Check the Download site and confirm that you have the latest software on the P2 Store. Note that you will need to have a PC to install the upgrade. Sorry.

Once you have traked to down to which is having the problem, call the Service Center in New Jersey and they can walk you through repair if that is what is needed.

Sorry for your trouble, and no I have not heard of this happening before, these are just the strategies that I would use if it were happening to me.

Best,

Jan
 
Thanks Jan,

We did not upgrade the software on the P2 Store and this could be the issue.

Without a doubt, we pulled the correct card because: (1) when we began the shoot we had 33 min of capacity, and we saw that decrease until the card read "full" and the remaining time was 16 min, and (2) the camera started recording to the second card in the middle of an interview and this is exactly what we found on the "good" card.

From what you have told me about the formatter, it looks like the camera "thought" it was recording to a P2 card (showed capacity dcreasing, indicated full, switched to another card) but in fact, it did not record. This is worrisome.

What about the Mac laptop taking a long time to mount and freezing during this wait period (approx 1 to 2 minutes)? Or the kernal panic (hard crash) when unmounting?

If anyone else has had this problemm please let me know. I have more confidence in the P2 store & P2 cards than I do with my mac P2 drivers.

Thanks,

Randy
 
Following this thread eagerly. I have had a similar experience, on two seperate cards on two seperate cameras. Recorded the 8 GB card full, but when I went to offload onto my PowerBook, it said there was only 3GB of footage there...
I haven't done the firmware update yet on the Cards, but I hope that solves the prob.
 
Thanks David,

At least we are not crazy. We cannot figure out how or why this happened. We reformatted the card and it works fine... at least for now!

How about yours?
 
TO be honest, I haven't done the upgrade yet...a thousand other things have taken my attention. But I very glad to hear that this works out...
Can you tell me real quick how the upgrade works? I haven't had the time to look at it closely, but i've seen it takes a PC and an SD card. Do you load the upgrade to the SD, and then the SD throught the HVX to the card?
 
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